


Less As Our Fathers, Part One [The Calm Before The Storm]

by puckity



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Gen, Homelessness, M/M, Sacrifice, dark themes
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2005-11-24
Updated: 2005-11-24
Packaged: 2018-02-07 17:59:25
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,666
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1908486
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/puckity/pseuds/puckity
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Do the sins of the fathers taint their sons forever?</p>
            </blockquote>





	Less As Our Fathers, Part One [The Calm Before The Storm]

**Author's Note:**

> Written in 2005; set in the world as I saw it in Harry’s 17th year, after HBP—non AU—so canon and spoilers through the first six books.
> 
> This was intended as a series, but I apparently did not have the self-control to commit to it at the time and have since moved on.
> 
> Beta'd by the brilliant Rachel.
> 
> You can also follow me on [Tumblr](http://puckity.tumblr.com/).

The platform shook slightly beneath the only two people left standing; a wall—destabilized in the last explosion—crumbled. The cloud of dust and smoke began to dissipate and the air between the two figures cleared. Amid this destruction a chilling silence stagnated.

“You’re not even trying, Weasley.” There was no mask of a sneer on that pale face, no illusion of contempt. There was only the purest loathing, reflected in stone grey eyes.

“You came here to kill me. So kill me.” The wand pointed at him shuddered, but he didn’t flinch. His own wand bit into his palm as he clenched a fist against his side. “Is there something you need to say to me? Or do you just not have the stomach for this sort of thing?”

“Traitor!” Her face was stark white, but her blue eyes had turned violet and the way she looked at him made it evident that she had never come face to face with this sort of evil before. She raised her wand higher.

Two years ago, Draco would have laughed. But now he didn’t even smile. “It’s obvious that you aren’t going to kill me. What a pathetic excuse for a pureblood.”

“How could you do it?! We trusted you!” Ginny’s accusation echoed around the empty station. “ **He** trusted you! How could you do it to him?!” Her wand was now level with Draco’s chest. She had steadied her grip, preparing herself for what was coming. The next words out of her mouth hung dull. “What sort of a person are you?”

His eyebrows lifted, but it was barely noticeable. Without warning he shouted, “ _Expelliarmus!_ ” Ginny’s wand landed somewhere behind her with a muffled clatter, but she didn’t look back. Her eyes never left Draco’s—staring back at her without recognition or emotion. Like looking into the eyes of death.

“You really don’t know what sort of person I am? Then I overestimated you, Weasley.” He almost sounded as though this hurt him. But then the grief was gone, if it had been there at all. “It doesn’t matter. You’ll get your answer.”

Draco raised his wand.

\---

Lately, Harry had the perpetual feeling of being watched. He couldn’t tune it out, close his eyes and lose himself; the possibility of enemies was too great. Everywhere, always. He no longer judged people by how kind their eyes were or how sincere their smile was. He judged them by how fast he thought they would be able to disarm and destroy him.

His body shook as the train rattled forward. It had taken him one day of commutes to see how different the Hogwarts’ Express was from the Tube. On the rarest of occasions when the Dursleys had allowed Harry to come along on some outing or another in London, he had often marveled at the subway system. Even after living in a world of magic for nine months of the year, that surge of excitement still rose when he passed the entrances to the Underground—staircases that descended into the street and led to a subterranean world; a world living in tandem with the street dwellers. But, like everything in life, riding the trains every day rapidly stripped them of their charm. The only good thing about it was the anonymity that came with traveling amongst such a massive group of people, all of whom couldn’t care less who their fellow travelers truly were.

\---

After Bill and Fleur’s wedding, Harry had planned to leave the Burrow unnoticed. During the ceremony—which was worth attending if only to see Fleur use the vows as an excuse to recite some of her terrible poetry, much to the Weasley women’s collective horror—McGonagall had cornered him. She wanted the one thing from him that he wouldn’t give; she wanted a promise that he’d return to school in the fall.

“Potter, I need you to do this.” Harry noticed that the way she looked at him had changed. In her eyes she looked afraid, as though with everyone who had died in Harry’s life she might be next in queue.

“No, Professor. I won’t.” Harry wished he could tell her that caring about him didn’t mark her life as forfeit.

“Potter, you must understand—”

“I won’t. Please Professor, there is nothing you can say and no point in your trying.”

“One month.” McGonagall seemed to be bartering as a last ditch effort. “I need you to come to school for one month. No more, no less. After that, you can leave and do what you must. All I ask is one month.”

Harry wondered what new loophole McGonagall had discovered that she thought could save him. Still not entirely comfortable with the outright challenging of his Transfiguration professor, Harry decided to hear her reasons. “Why? Why do you want me there? Is there some other special protection that is afforded to me through being at Hogwarts? Is some questionable enchantment worth putting all the other students—and _staff_ —in danger?”

McGonagall closed her eyes, and when she looked back at Harry she seemed to have aged decades. “No, no special power. Only a concentration of people who believe that protecting you is worth danger, and even death.” Harry swallowed the pain that rose in his chest. “After a month the Order will be finished reorganizing, and they’ll be better able to watch over you outside the school. And…” Unless Harry’s eyes were playing tricks on him, McGonagall suddenly looked nervous. He thought about prompting her, but was spared that awkward task because she spoke again after an uneasy silence.

“There will be someone there I think it would be beneficial for you to meet.”

An involuntary surge of hope shot through Harry’s body, but he was quick to crush it. Thoughts of a reincarnated Dumbledore would serve no purpose other than mocking him until the term began. Adopting a resigned tone, Harry agreed to one month. He noted that McGonagall didn’t look relieved as she turned and walked away.

\---

As the train sped forward, an ominous feeling settled in the pit of Harry’s stomach. It was the same sort of feeling he remembered having when he looked Mrs. Weasley in the eye and said,

“I _will_ leave. There is nothing to keep me here now.”

It was the only way. If Harry had begun to list all the noble reasons why he couldn’t stay at the Burrow—the danger his presence put the Weasleys in, the anxiety he caused them day in and day out, the pain they suffered from their love for him, the burden of his burden that they could not escape—he would still be trapped in a drafty attic room with Ron and Hermione popping in every so often to see how he was doing. It was an existence worse than living in the closet under the stairs with the Dursleys. He was surrounded by people who loved him but feared him, and he could not bear it. Just looking at Ron chatting feverishly with Hermione about Quidditch; looking at Hermione pretending to be interested in Ron chatting feverishly about Quidditch. Just catching Ginny watching him with a sort of bitter hope. Just seeing Mrs. Weasley nagging the twins—whom she had demanded return from London for ‘purely precautionary issues’—and seeing Mr. Weasley winking good-naturedly at his sons after being scolded by their mother. It was too much of a hollow attempt at life. Too much an echo of normal. Harry would’ve rather been alone and in danger than playing this game at happiness.

Still he couldn’t forget Mrs. Weasley’s face. It was as if these words were what really convinced her that things would not be alright. Harry felt like he had taken a Christmas present from a young child just as they were getting ready to open it. She had nodded and then gone off into the kitchen, returning quickly with a packed meal. Her eyes weren’t swollen or red; Harry had even taken away the incentive for tears.

“Goodbye, dear. You go and do what you have to do. Maybe then our Harry will be able to come back to us.”

He left without a hug, with hardly a smile. There was no one else there to deal with—Mr. Weasley was at the Ministry, Fleur had taken Bill out for a walk, Fred and George had challenged Ron and Hermione to a gnome chase. Ginny had told her mother that she was going to go and referee the lawn-ornament baiting, but she hadn’t. She sat at the top of the stairs, listening to the brief exchange and hearing the door close behind Harry, leaving a horrible silence in its wake. Harry knew she was there, but decided to not make it harder on himself, or Ginny. The few weeks of joy he’d had with her haunted him. She reminded him of everything he could never have, everything he could never be. At times the injustice of it threatened to break him.

How could Voldemort have won so completely that even the things Harry loved the most had become not just sources of pain, but objects of absolute torment?

\---

There wasn’t much for Harry in London. He couldn’t risk trips to Diagon Alley or the Ministry. He couldn’t even risk trying to contact other wizards. He refused to use magic in case the Underage Wizard Magic rule was still in effect, seeing as he was not yet 17. Even if it wasn’t, he couldn’t risk alerting anyone to suspicious behavior. For amusement Harry imagined how Ron would have fared in the Muggle world, if it had been him who was exiled instead.

It was true that Harry hadn’t thought out the plan of living in London at all. He was so preoccupied with getting out of the Burrow that he hadn’t stopped to seriously consider what he was attempting. When he got off the train at Marylebone Station he was struck with a sickening realization; he had no food, no clothes, no supplies other than what he’d thrown into his trunk. He had no Muggle money, and even if he could risk a stop at Gringotts’ it wouldn’t do him any good.

Because it was one of the few Muggle places in the city that held any sort of comfort for him, Harry had walked all the way to King’s Cross, rolling his beat-up luggage across the uneven sidewalks. By the time he got there it was late and he was hungrier than he ever cared to remember. He managed to convince an overly-compassionate woman that he’d been mugged and just needed enough money for a ticket back home. Fumbling through her ridiculously large handbag she had finally been able to produce some money and pressed a ten pound note into his cold hands. Before leaving she gave him a stern lecture on the dangers of a large city for an unassuming country boy and told him not to stand out in the night too long, otherwise he might get a nasty case of the flu.

Ignoring the internal gnawing around his abdomen, Harry walked to the luggage check and got rid of the trunk that was not suited for walking the London streets. Before leaving all his possessions with a rather bored looking middle-aged man, he took out a couple sets of clothes and some toiletries. He also took out the least obtrusive cloak he owned and slipped his wand in the pocket, careful not to rouse the attendant with any hint of excitement.

The furthest and most concealed storage locker was number 573. He stuffed the clothes and toiletries in there and wrapped the cloak around himself. The hard tap of thin wood against his thigh was slightly reassuring. Shoving the tiny silver key into his pocket he walked back out into the night, and spent half of it wandering without purpose and half of it asleep in an awkward position between two garbage cans and a brick wall.

\---

After a week of living on the streets his story of being mugged was wearing thin, and the little food he got seemed to disappear without having been consumed. The conductors at King’s Cross had taken to watching him closely, and after four days he didn’t dare go in there. The growing paranoia of his trunk being searched, the only things he owned being seized, and—what’s worse—the magical items he had being discovered was enough to keep him away.

On the sixth night a new issue arose; he was attacked by another vagrant—or someone without enough scruples to make interaction with him safe. Harry wasn’t sure what had started the scuffle, but it escalated with alarming speed. Within seconds he was trapped beneath the other man’s weight, being hit repeatedly on any part of the body this bloke could get at. He got the four quid that Harry’d managed to scrounge for the day, and was going for the forty pence that was clinking in his cloak when Harry remembered his wand. In blind fear he pulled it out of his pocket and shouted, _Petrificus Totalus!”_ The man went rigid; Harry caught the look of shock trapped behind those glassy, blinkless eyes. Then the body—made heavier by petrifaction—began to sway, and Harry rolled out of the way just in time to escape being pinned beneath it. Thinking only of the Ministry catching up with him, Harry ran without direction until he couldn’t move his feet and then fell to the ground and knew nothing else.

\---

Harry woke up in a church yard with his legs tangled in a mass of tulips. He briefly considered not getting up and making an effort to survive, and instead just laying there until someone found him or until he gave up and died. But a soft hoot oddly close to his ear shattered his plans, and he shot up as though an alarm had gone off. A regal looking black owl hopped back, startled, and now glared at Harry with silver eyes that told him his reaction was not appreciated.

The sight of a parchment tied to its right leg was almost enough to make Harry cry. The first sign of any friend, any help—a sign that Harry had told himself was not coming—had arrived. At this point it would not have mattered if the letter was from Snape or even Voldemort; the reminder that he was still alive in the mind of someone else was all he needed.

As it turned out, the letter wasn’t from Snape or Voldemort, but rather from Kingsley Shacklebolt. The strong and commanding handwriting made Harry feel a little guilty for his series of rash decisions. But there was nothing in the letter about any of that, no admonitions or chastisements. All it said was this:

 

 

**We hope this letter finds you in reasonably good health.**  
 **It has been agreed upon that your residence in London is a wise choice.**  
 **There is a building with three red and black turrets on Grays Inn Road near St. Pancras.**  
 **The top floor flat is held in your father’s name, with one year’s rent paid in full. It is furnished and you will find your trunk already there.**  
 **There is enough Muggle money for you to purchase any necessities at this time.**  
 **More will be sent accordingly.**  
 **Do not send a response, or attempt to contact anyone.**  
 **One ticket for the Hogwarts’ Express will be sent in the beginning of August. Your books and supplies will be taken care of.**  
 **The station is near the flat. Do not wander.**  
 **We will see you at King’s Cross Station on August the 23rd.**  
 **K. Shacklebolt**

  
That Kingsley was basically telling him he needed to stay within this flat for the next month and a half was not relevant. Harry’s goal for the rest of the day suddenly became getting to this building and finally having a decent place to live. He refused to consider anything beyond this immediate relief. The forty pence was not enough to take a bus, but in a stroke of desperation he bewitched his legs to make them look mangled, and sat on the street near the church in hopes that the God-fearing people coming in and out of the place would feel enough pity and guilt to give him their spare change. It took nearly three hours to collect enough for the fare, but he was finally able to un-hex his legs and walk to the nearest tube stop—where he was directed to the right bus, or rather the right series of buses. It was well after noon when Harry glanced out of the bus window and spotted an imposing building on a corner with three black and red turrets. At first he thought he might be hallucinating, because he hadn’t eaten all day. Still he got up frantically and exited at the next stop, retracing the bus’ path. When he got to the building he made to knock on the door, but it opened before he could touch the wood.

“You Potter? James Potter?” A miserable-looking man, bearing a striking likeness to Filch, was staring at him with supreme distaste.

“Yes, sir. I’m James Potter.” The voice didn’t sound like Harry’s—but then again he imagined it didn’t sound like his father’s either—and this man had no way of telling, in either case.

A bronze key was jammed into his palm, and then the man turned without a word. Harry had to jump forward to keep the front door from slamming shut in his face. Unsure of whether to follow or not, Harry opted to trail behind him up the stairs, since that was where his flat was anyway. At the top landing the man turned on him once again.

“All yer rent’s been paid for.” He eyed Harry suspiciously, and Harry couldn’t really blame him for that. “Only one other tenant, on the second floor. I live on the first. Me name’s Fletcher Horris. My rules are no parties, no late nights. No trouble from ye.” Harry thought he could understand why the Order had chosen this place for him, but it didn’t make the prospect any more welcoming. Mr. Horris pushed past him and stamped down the stairs again, but not before glancing back with mistrust at Harry’s disheveled figure. All this might have made Harry extremely angry, but when he unlocked the door and saw a stew already cooked and waiting for him, every other thought vanished from his mind.

\---

Harry had tried to follow Kingsley’s advice. But after two weeks of only going out to stores within fifteen minutes walking distance—and only for food and the other bare ‘necessities’—Harry was ready to do something drastic. Something drastic ended up being a ride on the Underground from the nearest station; only a few stops and then a ride back. But that day he had discovered something. He discovered a place where no one cared that he was Harry Potter. On that train he was nobody, and that was the best feeling in the world.

So he rode again a few days later, a few more stops. And then again. And again. Until he had ridden to the end of the line and back. By this point the mythic draw of the Tube was gone for him, but the freedom he felt there was something he had never known, and he refused to give it up.

Slowly though, the fear of enemies began to creep into his train rides. He couldn’t read a book or browse a paper because he couldn’t afford to take down his guard. Who knew where Voldemort’s servants were? Who even knew _who_ they were? Harry wasn’t sure, and it was something he could not risk being wrong about.

So—this particular day—the ominous feeling in the pit of his stomach was not a good sign. His eyes began to dart from figure to figure, as he had gotten in the habit of doing, and he made to gauge his instinctual reactions about each of them. Most were businesspeople, since it was midday and lunch hours were in full swing. A few riders looked like students, and a few were mothers with their young children, off for an adventure in the city. Harry bitterly envied them.

Across the aisle and at the very far end of the car, someone was hunched over, engrossed in whatever they held in their lap. Harry looked at the head of haphazardly cropped curls, dark with sudden flashes of red. Nothing. He sensed nothing. Not that he could really sense people’s intentions, but believing that gave him a feeling of security. That he felt nothing—good or bad—from this person was unsettling. The longer he stared the more self-conscious he became, until he began to wonder if the person was asleep because they hadn’t moved in so long. Certain that other people were starting to notice his strange behavior, Harry forced himself to look away.

But not soon enough.

The head barely moved up; the rest of the body stayed perfectly still. But through that mass of hair two eyes peered out, and they looked directly at Harry. Black like the endless nights he’d spent wandering the city without a place to sleep, they hit him like blades. A paralyzing shock ran through his nerves and ice froze in his veins; he felt so much in that instant that he couldn’t register any of it. Then those eyes were gone—disappeared—and Harry was looking at nothing but unruly curls again. The next stop was still several blocks from his flat, but that didn’t matter. He got off.

When he glanced back through the train windows he thought he saw a frightening smile pass over that person’s face. But they didn’t look up, and the train was speeding past before Harry could be sure of anything.


End file.
